1. Field of the Invention
The invention is concerned with combustion engines, wherein a compressor supplies compressed air to a combustion chamber, fuel is burned in the hot air in the combustion chamber and an expander is driven by the hot gases, which in turn drive the compressor. More specifically, the invention deals with the creation of a burning place and accessories thereto, wherein a solid fuel bar burns in the compressed air in the combustion chamber.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Around the turn of the century many inventions were made for burning coal powder in a separated combustion chamber between a compressor and an expander. Such patents are for example: U.S. Pat. Nos. 708,236 of Leonhard, 869,781 of Holden and other patents of the time around the year of 1900.
Success in the economy of those engines was, however, rarely reported. However, a very intensive research, development and building and application of coal-powder fuel run Diesel engines has developed during the first 40 years of our century. The leader in this field was Mr. Pablikowski, who obtained many patents and issued many articles in magazines in English, French and German languages.
A very extensive report was given about these happenings by Soehngen and associates by order of the Energy department under title: "Development of coal burning Diesel engines in Germany" during August 1966, (Energy Research and Development Administration) and this very important report can be obtained from: National Technical Information Service, U.S. Department of Commerce, Springfield, Va., 22 161.
There have been some attempts in the former art to burn slurry or cakes from coal powder. For example, the Tinkham U.S. Pat. No. 4,300,482 discloses a carburator in which particles of fuel are abrased from a fuel cake of semi solid fuel.
The U.S. Pat. No. 1,580,656 of De Conninck discloses a supply of powdered semi fluid fuel over a passage into the burning chamber of a permanent combustion engine.
These proposals have several problems, since they fail to use a rigid solid fuel bar at a specified running speed towards the burning chamber in relation to the rate of flow of compressed air into the burning- or combustion - chamber.
Specifically the abrasion of particles from a fuel cake as done by Tinkham can not control the details of abrasion locally and can not secure the direction and speed of flow of the abrased particles of fuel.
Similarly, the drying of semi fluid powdered fuel in the De Conninck Patent close to the burning place does not compress the powder from the slurry into a rigid bar but leaves a column of powder which can spray away in several or in many directions under the influences of pressures and velocities in the combustion chamber.
Thereby both mentioned patents fail to be able to control the local particles of fuel after they have entered into the combustion chamber. Precise and uniform burning of fuel can, consequently, not be obtained by these patents. Further, the cake and the semi fluid fuel of the mentioned patents require big storing spaces because the cake and the semi fluid is a mixture of solid fuel which has a high specific weight with a fluid, like liquid or air, which has a low specific weight. The overall specific weight of the mentioned fuels is thereby too low compared to the desired rigid solid fuel bar fuel of the present invention.